What caused the mandate?--wherefore do I shrink? The stream runs on,--why tarry at the brink? Nay, let us halt, and in the pause between Sorrow and joy, behold the quiet scene;-- The chamber stately in that calm repose, Which Time's serene, sweet conqueror, ART bestows; There, in bright shapes which claim our homage still, Live the grand exiles from the Olympian Hill; Still the pale Queen Cithaeron forests know, Turns the proud eye, and lifts the deathful bow; Still on the vast brow of the father-god, Hangs the hush'd thunder of the awful nod; Still fair, as when on Ida's mountain seen, By Troy's young shepherd, Beauty's bashful Queen; Still Ind's divine Iacchus laughing weaves His crown of clustering grapes and glossy leaves; Still thou, Arch-type of Song, ordain'd to soothe The rest of Heroes, and with deathless youth Crown the Celestial Brotherhood--dost hold, Brimm'd with the drink of gods, the urn of gold! All live again! The Art which images Man's noblest conquest, as it slowly frees Thought out of matter, labouring patient on, Till springs a god-world from reluctant stone, Charm'd Morvale more than all the pomp and glow With which the Painter limns a world we know. 'Twas noon, and broken by the gentle gloom Of coolest draperies, through the shadowy room, In moted shaft aslant, the curious ray Forced lingering in, through tiers of flowers, its way, Glanced on the lute (just hush'd, to leave behind Elysian dreams, the music of the mind), Play'd round the songstress, and with warmer flush Steep'd the young cheek, unconscious of its blush, And fell, as if in worship, at thy base, O sculptured Psyche[P] of the soul-lit face, Bending to earth resign'd the mournful eye, Since earth must prove the pathway to the sky; Doom'd here, below, Love's footprint to explore } Till Jove relents, the destined wandering o'er, } And in celestial halls, Soul meets with Love once more.[Q] } And, side by side, the lovers sat,--their words Low mix'd with notes from Lucy's joyous birds, Sole witnesses and fit--those airy things, That, 'midst the bars, can still unfold the wings, And soothe the cell with language, learn'd above; As the caged bird--so on the earth is love! Their talk was of the future; from the height Of Hope, they saw the landscape bathed in light, And, where the golden dimness veil'd the gaze, Guess'd out the spot, and mark'd the sites of happy days; Till silence came, and the full sense and power Of the blest Present,--the rich-laden Hour That overshadow'd them, as some hush'd tree With mellow fruitage bending heavily,-- What time, beneath the tender gloom reclined, Dies on the lap of summer-noon the wind!